Melvyn Bragg book

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>         According to an essay at
> http://www.compedit.com/native_humor.htm, there is a contemporaneous
> story in which Crockett calls a spittoon "a beautiful tin box with a
> leetle hole in the top of it" and refuses to use it, spitting on what he
> calls a "splendiferous carpit" instead.  The essay's footnoting is
> garbled in the online version, but I believe that this may be cited to
> The Crockett Almanac for 1839 (Nashville: B. Harding), p. xx.

"Splendiferous" (humorous) from 1840 (Ancestry.com: Alton Telegraph [Alton
IL], 11 Jan. 1840, p. 1 [I think], col. 3):

<<A fashionable lady in Buffalo is going to have a house built on one of
the best sites in town. Every thing about it to be "sublimated" and
"splendiferous." There is to be "a Porto Rico" in front, "a Pizarro" in the
rear, and "a Lemonade" all round it.>>

-- Doug Wilson